Applications for loans from the private sector in Cuba are 'very few' according banks

More than two years after the enactment of a law that allows Cuban state banks to finance self-employed persons and cooperatives, few people have applied for these loans. A report published by the official site Cubadetate last Wednesday said that only 820 credits were materialized nationwide. "We think the shortcomings lie in the lack of knowledge that the sector has on funding. Though we have given seminars and offered attentions for that purpose, insistence on them for resources has not been much," said Milagros Suazo Reimond, Metropolitan Bank deputy director of corporate banking On December the authorities reported that about 444,000 people were working as self-employed and there were about two hundred non- agricultural cooperatives. Officials say few credits requested had been rejected, and paperwork and requirements are not bothersome, but still the rates are low.